Always There
by AlicexWonderland
Summary: Draco Malfoy is convicted for the murder of Hermione Granger. However, he is given a potion that creates a alternate world where Hermione is still alive and he can't help but fall in love with her. But even in Draco's potion-induced dream, there was no escape of the fact that Draco had murdered Hermione Jean Granger. That she was left only in her murderer's imagination
1. Chapter 1

**SORRY. I am so sorry it has taken me so long to do anything with this story! I am rewriting the prolong now, and you can expect the next chapter in an hour! I wasn't a huge fan of some of the things I said in the first prolong, but leave a review if you prefered the first one, or this one is too confusing. This one is a little more vague, but I added some Draco/Hermione! **

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><p>Hermione started pulling away from Draco's grip."W-what are you talking about? Stop it." The tremble in her voice undermined her bravado.<p>

"I thought coming back would help!" Draco screamed, maddened. "I kept telling myself '_just one more time, I'll be okay to live the rest of my life if I can see her one more time_." But I can't! One more day of you doesn't work!" He gripped her arm tighter, moving his other hand to cup under her chin, forcing her to look him in the eye. Her bright brown eyes were watered down with unshed tears. She knew something had always been off in their relationship. She always knew. How did she do that?

Draco caressed her cheek and lowered his mouth to hers. Even in her hurt and confusion, she did not deny him, and that only made the Draco's chest tighten even more. She loved him, as he loved her. She was his. His and only his. But he had no right to make any claim on her, and she had no idea how deep his betray went.

Because he didn't just hurt her. He wasn't just a bully who called her terrible names and made her cry all through out their childhood. He wasn't just a spoiled brat. He was a murdered. Her murder. This Hermione who he held in his arms was the spitting image of the women he murdered. There was no difference

Except one had lived in reality.

Except one of them did not live as a recreation in a Imagination Potion.

Except one had been murdered, by Draco Lucius Malfoy.

Blaise has both blessed and cursed Draco when he gave him an illegal potion in which one can create an alternate reality. A reality in which life starting at where it all went wrong. Desperate to feel something Draco chose to try the potion and soon was desperate to go back. Because he had fallen in love with a girl in there. A girl only in there now.

Draco have fallen in love with Hermione Jean Granger.

She loves spaghetti, corny movies, and coffee. She can never have enough candy, go to too many museums, or read too many books. She hates thunder storms. She is obsessed with muggle television shows, and forces her friends to watch them. She can't stand milk, but loves pickles. Her favorite day is Friday, and her favorite color is blue, but only certain shades. She is funny, smart, quirky and the single most lively person Draco ever met.

But even in Draco's potion induced dream, there was no escape of the fact that Draco had murdered Hermione Jean Granger. That she was left only in her murderer's imagination.

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><p><strong>So what do you think? Too confusing? Just right? Too vague? Stop while you're behind? HELP ME. I have no idea what I'm doing! But these two seem to understand what they want to do with each other, so let's let them lead the way. <strong>

**XOXO - AlicexWonderland**


	2. Chapter 2

**I am having quite a bit of set up here, I know, but I promise it is all very necessary! Enjoy this chapter! I know you will all love Hermione's death. **

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><p>"You don't have to do this, Draco..." The Mudblood stuttered out, attempting to be brave.<p>

"The thing is, Granger, that I do. I really do." Draco replies. pushing the end of his wand into her forehead. She winces in pain, but doesn't dare move away. She keeps eye contact unabashed, but her eyes give her away. She knows she is going to die, and she wants to live. So very badly. She can figure a way out of this. She was the brightest witch of her age. She had to live. She couldn't die in the last moments of the final battle. She couldn't.

The final war was currently going on around them, but Draco had managed to find Hermione alone while she was searching for Ron and Harry. How did she let herself get separated from them? Draco couldn't believe his luck. He imagined it'd be so much harder to fulfill his mission The Dark Lord had given him to kill the Blood Traitor and The Mudblood. Yet here is the brains of The Golden Trio, standing on the other end of Draco's wand.

Draco doesn't want to waste time. He had lucked out finding her alone, but knew that someone would undoubtedly come looking for her. He sucks in a breath, preparing himself to say the 2 words that would bring his family in the good graces of The Dark Lord when suddenly she blurts out "We could have been friends!" Draco freezes, caught off guard. Hermione pauses too, clearly gathering her thoughts, before she starts again, "We... we could have been friends... Without the blood, or non-blood, or magical and family prejudices... I... I wanted... I mean.. We could have been friends..."

Her speech throws Draco off completely. Granger? And Draco? Perhaps if she wasn't such a bookworm, goody goody maybe we could have been.. But then she wouldn't be frizzy-haired Granger then, would she?

To be truthful, during first year, Draco had to suppress the urge to talk to Granger. The need to look in her direction, or the guilt with shoving or tossing her around. Draco use to love the focused, almost distant look in her eye when she was thinking – which is always was. Gazing down into her eyes now, Draco still see the expression in her eyes that defined her… But she was filth. She was a Mudbood. A pig-headed Gyriffindor through and through. Hermione Granger was the epitome of all he was raised to hate. With that thought Draco readjusted his wand back onto the space between her eyes.

My family picked this for him. The Light was going to lose. Draco tried to help, at the Manor, or even throwing the Death Eaters off their scent from time to time, but it had to come down to this. Draco needed to kill Granger. The Mudblood. The poster child to ever mudblood who wanted to be someone or something in the wizarding world. Draco needed to kill her now or be killed himself when the Dark Bastard wins the battle here today. Draco finds himself left with only one option. Kill Granger. He had been so sure of himself before her bloody declaration. He had already come to terms with murdering someone. When he first heard, he was even glad, but now..

"I-I can't. I'm sorry, Granger..."

"You have a choice, Malfoy. You always do." She replied, raising her chin in defiance.

"NO! YOU DON'T. You haven't been forced to do anything before! You've running all around the Wizarding World while everyone else was stuck here, forced to follow The Dark Lords wishes! This-" He forces, pushing his wand into her forehead even more "- this is what I have been raised to do! Kill you! Don't you dare tell me what choices I have because you think you understand!"

"Fine then! Kill me. Harry is still out there, you'll accomplish nothing with this. If I can't convince you to stop, then maybe realizing what this life is making you do will." Any fear in Hermione's body drained out, and she straightened up against the wall, staring Draco square in the eye. Without breaking eye contact"Become a murder, Draco." She moved his wand from between her eyes to directly over her heart. "Do it." He was frozen in place. "DO IT!" She screamed, desperation strong in her voice, knowing they'd be her last words.

So Draco Malfoy killed Hermione Granger.

A blast of green light wiped all thought from Hermione's eyes and left them pale and clouded. No longer focused. No longer brightly shining with defiance.

He did it.

He actually killed her.

Her body pooled itself onto the ground, crippled, and lifeless, like a rag doll that had been through one too many play dates.

A broken doll. Hermione Granger doesn't exist anymore, only the remains of the body she was in.

Draco couldn't look at her like this anymore, he prop her up against the wall, crossing her cold, already stiffening arms in front of her. With one last look in those once intelligent irises Draco took two fingers and close her eyes for her. If someone didn't know any better they would say Hermione had fallen asleep while waiting for class.

She wouldn't have wanted to live in Voldemort's world anyway... Draco helped her in the end.. In the very end.

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><p>The Light had won..<p>

The Light had actually won, and when the news spread a smile broke out onto Draco's face that was as bright as the sun.

But then Draco remembered he played for The Dark. He had not only played for The Dark, but killed for The Dark.

Killed when she didn't need to die.

The gut-wrenching guilt that consumed his whole world was blinding. He had stopped breathing and nothing else in my felt like it was functioning properly. Draco Malfoy killed Hermione Granger so he could keep his own life, when in the end no one needed to die. Maybe it could have been like she said... Maybe they could have been friends...

Oh God, her last words were that she wanted to be his friend, that she want him to learn that he didn't need The Dark or his parents acceptance in order to live his life, and she was willing to give her life so he could learn that.

And then he had killed her in cold blood?

Draco should be in Azkaban for life. He didn't deserve any kind of life when he had taken one that had been so very promising.

However, when trials had started after the war, they saw his parent's pressure on me as the reason for his actions 'Let the public take care of what we can't' Draco had heard them say when they thought know one was listening. His charges of murder in the first were dropped, but both of his parents were sentenced to life in Askaban. The people Draco murdered for were gone too now. He had truly murdered for nothing.

At this point, Draco didn't know how many days it's been. Hell, he didn't even know how many years it's been. But he had started to live his life desperate to make amends with some action. He had gotten a job in the Ministry of Magic as a Wizard of Medical Science creating potions for magical and other diseases. Even though he was never felt proud of himself he let himself feel happy about the fact that he had saved many lives, created many cures to previously terminal diseases. He was currently working on a potion that would reverse a curse that made their victims age backwards until they were either small enough to so they could not fight anymore or died in reverse. It's was called the 'Benjamin Button Curse' after a muggle movie.

"Knock, knock" Called Blaise from the door of the laboratory. He had also started working for the Ministry after the war. He had claimed he did it for similar reasons to mine. "I've seen many horrible things during the war-" He said to me one day "-it would be nice for a change to see some someone backing up the good guy." He bounced around to various places in the Ministry, mostly working as a Auror, but would always come by the lab to see if Draco needed help on various days. But those days have become less frequent ever since his Italian friend had started dating the She-Weasel. Blaise had apparently abhorred a secret relationship with Ginny Weasley for an entire year through out the war, it was only after the light had won that they announced their relationship to the world with Blaise's proposal. Somehow, with their busy Auror schedules they were married a year after the war. Blaise was a doofus in love. Constantly insetting he come with her on all of her missions and assignments, and surprising her with small gifts around the office.

"Hey, Blaise" Draco greeted "coming in?"

"Just checking up." Blaise replied and hesitated before nervously adding "How's BB going?"

Draco eyed Blaise for his curious behavior but continued to work anyway. "To be honest, I'm not sure. It seems the only ingredients that will work only work only work temporarily. The victim will eventually jump back to the stage they were at when they last took the person. If a person were to take the potion everyday of their lives forever, then they would be stuck on that stage until they forget one day…"

"So, you've sort of got a cure?" Blaise inquired, excitement evident in his voice.

"More like a band-aid." Draco grumbled.

"That's still fantastic, Drake! This can hold over a person till you do find the cure! This gives people in early stages a chance! I can't believe it, you di-" Blaise rambled, before Draco raised his head and raised one eyebrow at his friend, silencing him at once.

"Not that I don't appreciate the excitement, but you've never been so out right excited about any of my potions, Blaise. What's going on?"

Blaise turned his gaze to the floor, looking crestfallen and stoned-faced. In a harsh low voice he answered "She got hit."

Draco's brows furrowed. "What? Who got hit with what?"

Blaise's head shot up, fury evident in his eyes, but so was his sorrow. "Ginny! Ginny got hit with the Benjamin curse!"

Blood rushed from Draco's face "What?.."

"She went out without me!" He continued, "she never listens to me, and now what? That damn Aunt of yours fucking cursed her! She already looks years younger, Draco! I can't lose her! You need to give her this potion. Now."

"Blaise," Draco started, unsure of how to deal with his distraught friend, "This is all highly experimental. I'm not even sure if it will hold her over, or just give her a bad taste in her mouth!"

"I have to try!" Blaise bellowed, clearly breaking.

"… Okay," Draco answered, after a beat of silence, "bring me to her."

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><p>Ginny Weasley was not at all at terms with what was happening.<p>

She did not look younger already. She did not feel like she felt in a 18 year old body. She was 23. She looked 23, she walked like she was 23, talked like she was 23, and had a 23 year old mind. Right?

Right. Of course. She had no need to be at St. Mungo's. It was silly for her to be here, really. She should be getting back to her husband, Blaise, and go back to the Ministry. Work on capturing Death Eaters who had escaped trial, not sit in a hospital bed that actual sick people need.

Because she wasn't sick.

But if she wasn't sick, why was she so relieved when Blaise brought Draco and a blue vial to her bedside?

"Blaise!" She exclaimed, grabbing him and snuggling her face into the crook of his neck. "Blaise, Blaise, Blaise, Blaise…"

"Shhh, shh, baby." Blaise cooed, "Drake has something we think… we… that we hope is going to help."

Ginny looked up from Blaise's arms, feeling dazed. "Draco?"

Draco edged around Blaise and silently held out the vial to her. He had never known how to react around Ginny. He didn't feel any of his childhood hostility toward her anymore, that blind hatred vanished from him after he… After.. Well, after the The Light had won.

7 years later and he still couldn't admit he did it.

But that, that which he wishes so hard he could change, or forget, is why he feels shamed just in Ginny Weasley's presence. Hermione was Ginny's best friend, and her her's. When he ended Hermione's life, he not only destroyed her future, but those who her future intertwined with. Ginny did not have a girlfriend to squeal to after her first date with Blaise, nor someone to rant to when he was difficult. Ginny did not have a maid of honor, or someone whom she trusted to help plan her wedding.

Because Draco stole Hermione's life, he stole Ginny's life with Hermione as well. And he couldn't bring himself to look her in the eye for it.

Ginny gingerly took the vial into her own hands before looking back up at Blaise, her eyes ablaze with questions and perhaps even, hope.

Blaise smiled, but it didn't look right because of the obvious pain and desperation in his eyes. "Draco made something that will help, baby. It won't fix it, but it will help, very much so. Just please, drink up, and I promise you, you will not leave me."

Ginny looked from Blaise's face to the vial in his hand with a spellbound look on her face. She hesitantly reached for the bottle, before looking into Blaise's eyes one more time, then flickering to Draco's. Disbelief evident in her eyes, and Draco couldn't help but to look back at her. As if holding her gaze would repay his sins.

"Will… Will this really work Draco?" She questioned, and in that moment, Draco had never seen the aggressive lioness look so much like a lost child. He opened his mouth, but was unable to say he wasn't sure. Eventually, he decided on saying "It's worth a try."

And with that Ginny took off the cork top and downed the bottle. Blaise cupped Ginny's face in his hands, and she gazed back at him smiling.

"I… I think it's working.. I feel.. warm…" she said, hopeful, and Blaise smiled right back at her, his shoulders evidently relaxing.

Right before her eyes rolled back into her head and her body fell limp.

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><p><strong>Cliff hangers! Oh, what is wrong with Ginny? Any guesses? Can you already guess what I'm doing with the plot? Oh please, tell me! I'm dying to know if you all can guess or not! <strong>

**I actually have half of the next chapter written, but I felt bad promising a chapter in the hour and not giving you one at all. So you get a shorter chapter, and one most likely tomorrow afternoon. **

**_XOXO ~ AlicexWonderland_**


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